Evol Pedal: Walking Evolution Sim

Evol Pedal is a walking evolution simulator where lifeforms reproduce based on their ability to travel forward. They evolve their own methods of walking, crawling, jumping, or climbing to adapt to the environment.

Each movement and characteristic is programmed into their virtual genes, all of which can change over time through random mutations. Segments are connected with joints (the bold, colored lines between them), of which either stay stiff or can revolve and pivot. Each muscle has its own timers, which can also change over time, giving rise to intricate movement patterns.

Different variations will be tried until one of them passes the flag, becoming the new parent. When setting the amount of Mutations, each new lifeform will have exactly that many changes from its parent.

The simulation auto-saves/loads so you can always come back to where you left off. Every time you reset the game or create a new lifeform the game will save a backup file beforehand. For more info on this, just view the "Info on Saving" inside the zip. You won't ever lose your progress.

New in Version 10 is a terrain option, allowing you to generate unique hills and slopes for your lifeforms to traverse.

Using the Build tool, you can add steps and walls for your lifeform to
get over. Setting the Round Timer will give
lifeforms more or less time to pass the flag. A high round time will force your lifeform to develop and polish consistent movements to meet the higher potential distance. Power controls the strength of the muscles. The Game Speed setting is still experimental. Damping slows down the movement of the segments. Friction is set very high by default, as sliding tends to impede realistic movement. Scroll to zoom in and use the arrows keys to pan the camera. A full list of keyboard shortcuts can be found inside the zip.

If Falling is on, then whenever the head of the lifeform (the white square) falls to the floor or touches a build object, if it is past its green starting line, immediately loses and its flag progress is reset. This is useful because it forces lifeforms to evolve with consideration for supporting their head, which helps to produce more life-resembling structure. Max Fails is a settings that gives the lifeform X amount of fails to pass the flag. If it runs out of tries, then the flag will be moved back one pixel and the counter will be reset.

Reset the game. Don't change the Speed. Turn off Terrain. Click "New Lifeform", until you get something promising. Add a few bumps on the track, as in the Gifs. Let the game run by itself for a while. Sometimes, it can take up to 10,000 rounds before you see progress. That is how evolution is. Don't increase the speed to wait less, it doesn't work that way. It is an experimental setting and will most likely not give you what you want. I've had success leaving the game running all night. This is why it Auto-saves, because you need to keep working on a lifeform for a long time.